


Sweet Blossoms

by Wildwalker



Category: Frozen Fire - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:51:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7382527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildwalker/pseuds/Wildwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A domestic Steele/Kale AU inspired by this tumblr post: Person A owns a flower shop and person B comes storming in one day, slaps 20 bucks on the counter and says “How do I passive-aggressively say fuck you in flower?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Blossoms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arianwen44](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arianwen44/gifts).



            The early evening light cast the city outside in warm, beckoning hues of golden orange. Kale sighed, considering the possibility of closing up shop just a little bit early. The evening was sure to be splendid, and with autumn now beginning, this would be one of the last warm evenings of the season. The shop was scheduled to close in another twenty minutes though, and he couldn’t see the use in closing early with such a short time remaining.

            At this time in the evening, Sweet Blossoms wasn’t very busy. The hour was approaching seven o’clock, and the only thing that kept the shop open to this hour was the frequent traffic of white collar professionals, having freshly arisen from their desk jobs and seeking a bouquet to woo their prospective dates for the evening. There had been no such patrons today though. Kale sighed again, eyeing the clock that ticked away beside his register.

            The door to the shop flew open with a startling clatter of bells, and Kale’s head jerked up to see a young man in slacks and a blue polo with the Best Buy logo on it come storming in. The young man slammed both hands down on Kale’s counter and demanded, “I need to send somebody flowers that say, ‘Fuck you!’”

            Kale blinked, still taken by surprise by his sudden and stormy arrival. It took him a moment to fully process the request, but he found himself acting on autopilot as he asked, “What is the occasion?”

            “My boss ‘decided’ that I wasn’t a good fit for the job he hired me for, so he fired me today,” the young man hissed haughtily, punctuating that word ‘decided’ with air quotes. “So I thought I should send him a bouquet to show him what I thought of his ‘decision.’”

            “Right, I’ll see what I can do,” Kale responded, bustling out from behind the counter.

            As he busied himself plucking flowers out of their containers, he could feel the young man’s eyes burning into his back. It was hard – impossible, even – for Kale to relate to the young man’s feelings. As the owner of Sweet Blossoms, he was not in a position to be fired. This flower shop was all he knew; it was his family’s shop, and he had been groomed from a young age to take it over one day. That day had come a bit sooner than he had expected when his parents had decided to move in search of a more amiable climate, leaving their son behind to manage the shop, but he was not unequal to the task.

            Despite their differences in circumstances, Kale tried to empathize with the young man. A large part of the reason behind his success in running the shop was that he could get inside the heads of his clients and work out what they truly wanted to convey with their bouquets. He could imagine the rage and frustration this man must be going through, along with the overwhelming desire for revenge, no matter how small. The gears in his head started turning. He paused in reaching for another flower and glanced over his shoulder.

            “May I make a suggestion?” he asked.

            The young man arched a fine eyebrow at him. “What?”

            “You’re doing this to get back at your boss, right?” Kale asked, and then proceeded after getting a nod from the man, “So why not write a letter to accompany the bouquet?”

            “Why should I do that?” the young man asked, a wrinkle forming above his nose in distaste.

            “Well, I was just thinking that it’s hard to find a job in this market,” Kale commented. “And unless your boss is a former florist, I doubt he’ll know all the meanings of these flowers. He might even receive the bouquet as a nice parting gesture, like a thank you gift. So why not send him a thank you letter to go with it? That way you might be able to persuade him to become a reference for you while you look for a new job. And in the meantime, he won’t know he’s got a big bouquet of ‘fuck you’ on his desk. It’s more of a passive-aggressive approach, but if it works, your boss will help you get a new job without ever realizing what you did.”

            The young man paused in considering this suggestion, and in the intervening silence, Kale was able to take in his appearance more fully. His hair was a blueish black, and it was styled in such a way that it came to an unusual point in the back, with a few longer tufts of it hanging down like tassels in front of his ears. But even more striking than his unusual hairdo were his eyes. The color was like nothing he had ever seen before; a deep, icy blue, like something you might find in the depths of a glacial chasm. And even now in their casual gaze of contemplation, they were sharp as a cat’s.

            “That is not a bad idea,” the young man said after a moment. “Only I have no idea what to put in the letter, besides trying to tear him a new one.”

            “That’s easy,” Kale chuckled. He had to look away though to not be captivated by those eyes. “All you have to say is how grateful you are for the opportunity to work with him, even if it was a short opportunity. Tell him that you feel that you learned a great deal from him and in the short time that you worked with him, you really feel that you grew and developed as a person as well as an employee. That ought to butter him up nicely.”

            “Ok,” the young man said, though he sounded a bit skeptical.

            The shop fell silent again as Kale busied himself with picking out flowers for the bouquet. Finally he returned to his counter and arranged the handful of yellow carnations, red geraniums, and orange tiger lilies into an artful display. Holding the arrangement up, he examined it carefully. The young man stepped forward.

            “That’s perfect,” he began to say.

            “Wait,” Kale interrupted. “It needs a finishing touch.”

            He scurried out from behind the counter once more. With a careful eye, he selected a single stem of tall foxglove and delicately arranged it into the center of the bouquet. When he was finally satisfied, he grinned, pleased with the outcome. With the tall foxglove towering over the other plants, one could almost imagine the bouquet to resemble a middle finger salute; almost, but not quite – Kale was far too tactful for that.

            “That should do it,” Kale declared, picking out a simple vase for the arrangement. “The carnations express disappointment, the geraniums are for stupidity, the foxglove says insincerity, and finally, the lilies are for hatred.”

            “It’s perfect,” the young man said again. He looked outright excited. “Thank you for all your help! How much do I owe you?”

            “Normally I would charge forty dollars for the bouquet and an extra ten for the vase,” Kale said. The young man’s face fell, and Kale continued. “But it’s the end of the day, so here’s my end-of-the-day deal for you: I’ll mark the flowers as half-priced and throw in the vase for free–”

            “That would be fantastic!” the young man exclaimed with gratitude.

            “–if you come back and tell me how it went,” Kale finished. He gave the young man a wink. “That’s my special price for the additional advice.”

            The young man blinked before nodding, seeming a bit dazed by it all. He pulled out his wallet as Kale rang him up. The total came out to be less than twenty-two dollars. As Kale was handing the young man his receipt and bouquet, he realized that not once during this whole meeting had either one of them introduced themselves.

            “I’m Kale, by the way,” he said, quick to remedy this. “What’s your name?”

            The young man blinked before responding, “Steele.”

            “It’s nice to meet you, Steele,” Kale said, reaching over the counter to offer his hand.

            Steele stared at the offered hand as if he’d never been offered a handshake before – or at least not regularly enough to expect it upon a first meeting. Tentatively he reached out and shook it. For all the strength and passion of his earlier anger, Kale was surprised that he had a fairly light grip. When the gesture was complete, Steele’s hand retreated quickly to the safe space that was clutching the vase.

            “I’ll look forward to seeing you again soon, Steele,” Kale said, smiling warmly at him.

            “Yeah,” Steele agreed. “You too. I’ll see you later?”

            The statement came out more as an uncertain question, and Kale smiled in amusement as he replied, “Definitely!”

            “Ok, thanks again,” Steele said, raising a hand in farewell as he turned for the door.

            Kale watched him again. When the bell to his shop stopped jingling and he could no longer see Steele through the glass windows, he turned his attention to all the tasks of closing his shop for the evening. He sighed again, though this time there was a smile upon his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Steele and Kale are from a yet unpublished book called Frozen Fire. They belong to Arianwen44. For more information, check out her tumblr account here: http://arianwen44.tumblr.com/


End file.
